While Mr. George and Rollo had been holding this conversation, they had been walking along through St. James's Park; and, considering the abstract and unentertaining character of the subject, Rollo had listened quite attentively to what his uncle had said, only his attention had been somewhat distracted once or twice by the gambols of the beautifully irised ducks that he had seen from time to time on the water as he walked along the margin of it. The conversation was now, however, interrupted by the sound of a trumpet which Rollo heard at a distance, and which he saw, on looking up, proceeded from a troop of horsemen coming out from the Horse Guards. Rollo immediately wished to go that way and see them, and Mr. George consented. As they went along, Mr. George closed his conversation on the English aristocracy by saying,-- "England is a delightful country for noblemen, no doubt, and an aristocratic government will always work very well indeed for the interests of the aristocracy themselves who exercise it, and for the good order and safety, perhaps, of the rest of the community. A great many weak and empty-headed women who come out to England from the great cities in America, and see these grand equipages in London, think what a fine thing it is to have a royal government, and wish that we had one in America; but this is always on the understanding that they themselves are to be the duchesses." * * * * * Mr. George was doubtless substantially correct in his explanation of the opinion which many fashionable ladies in America are led to form in favor of our aristocratic form of government from what they see of the pomp and parade of the English nobility; though, in characterizing such ladies as weak and empty headed women, he was, to say the least, rather severe. In respect to the other question,--that is, how far the immense inequality of the division of the annual production of the Island of Great Britain among the people who produce it, and the consequent extreme poverty of so large a portion of the working classes, is owing to the laws and institutions which the aristocracy themselves have formed,--that is a very grave one. Mr. George thought that it was owing to those laws and institutions, and not to any thing in the natural or physical condition of the country itself, that there was so much abject poverty in Great Britain. "The soil is as fertile," said he to himself, "the mines are as rich, the machinery is as effective, and there is as much profitable work to be done in England as in America, and I see no reason why the whole amount of value produced in proportion to the producers should not be as great in one country as in the other. Consequently, if some classes obtain more than their share, and others less, the inequality must be the effect of the institutions and laws." CHAPTER XII A MISFORTUNE.